Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1996, Blaðsíða 156

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are, in faet, translated from sections of William of Pagula’s Oculus Sa-
cerdotis, the closest available source for most of the first part of the
treatise is actually CTV, books III, V, and VI.22 A very close translation
of the discussion of physiognomy in CTV Il.lvii-lix is included, in
whole or in part, in some nine Icelandic manuscripts, the oldest of
which, Codex Lindesianus, was written in the last quarter of the fif-
teenth century, probably between 1473 and 1487. It is interesting that
Gottskålk’s syrpa, the commonplace book of Gottskålk Jonsson of
Glaumbær, which preserves a fragmented text of Spec. Pen.23 ultimate-
ly drawn from CTV, also contains the version of the Icelandic physio-
gnomic treatise most closely related to Hugh Ripelin’s Latin text.24 The
many medieval Icelandic manuscripts which contain material translated
from CTV attest to the great popularity of Hugh Ripelin’s handbook in
og Island’, Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for nordisk middelalder, 22 vols. (Copenhagen,
1956-1978), XIV, col. 44. See also L.E. Boyle, A study of the works attributed to William
ofPagula with special reference to the Oculus Sacerdotis and Summa Summarum, 2 vols.
(unpubl. D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford Univ., 1956); Boyle, ‘The Oculus Sacerdotis and
some other works attributed to William of Pagula’, Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society. Fifth Series, 5 (1955), pp. 81-110. A convenient summary of Boyle’s research on
the life and work of William ofPagula is presented in J. Goering, William de Montibus (c.
1140-1213): The Schools and the Literature of Pastoral Care, Pontifical Institute of Medi-
aeval Studies, Studies and Texts 108 (Toronto, 1992), pp. 95-98. Widding suggests that
part of this Icelandic reworking of Oculus Sacerdotis bears comparison with part of the
contents of AM 685d 4to (‘AM 672 4o’, p. 346), and apparently on the basis of this com-
ment, this manuscript was listed as one of the variant texts of this Icelandic treatise in
Gunnar Hardarson, Heimspekirit å fslandi fram til 1900 (Reykjavlk, 1982), p. 14, no. 31.
Although Widding does not mention any particular section of AM 685d 4to with which
the Icelandic treatise might be compared, he evidently refers to the first treatise in the
manuscript. ff. l-8v: ‘Um sjalfsjoekking ok syndamedvitund’, and it is this section which
Gunnar lists as a variant of AM 672 4to. Widding and Gunnar Hardarson are, of course,
mistaken on this point, for AM 685d 4to is the ‘A’ text of Spec. Pen. (see Pedersen and
Louis-Jensen, ‘Speculum penitentis’, p. 200). It is, nevertheless, interesting that Widding
seems to have recognized similarities in two unrelated Icelandic texts which happen to
draw upon the same Latin source.
22 On CTV as a source for the Old Icelandic Oculus Sacerdotis, see Appendix II.
23 Gottskålk’s syrpa is preserved as British Library MS. Add. 11242, MS. C in Pedersen
and Louis-Jensen’s apparatus, ‘Speculum penitentis’, p. 200.
24 An edition of the Icelandic physiognomic treatise in Codex Lindesianus, John Ry lands
Library Icelandic MS. no. 1, forms part of my doctoral dissertation. On C7V as the source
of this treatise, see McDougall, Codex Lindesianus, pp. 526-661 and commentary pp.
441-462, 501-515 and 605-611. On the place of Gottskålk’s syrpa in the stemma of texts
of the Icelandic physiognomic treatise, see especially pp. 387-402 and 413-415.